Discovery
by BMT and SuperMoose
Summary: Spoilers for Tron: Legacy. Two programs try to survive the culmination of Clu's last strike with everything against them. The Masked DJs get some characterization, and maybe even live. By BlackMarketTrombones.
1. One More Time

_Discovery_

"One More Time"

By BlackMarketTrombones

Warnings: OCs. Pretty much the entire story is OCs. The two main characters are only very technically not OCs. Also spoilers. Most of the plot takes place during the events of _Tron: Legacy_, and I'm trying very hard to be canon-compliant.

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The city was in a tumult. Crowds thronging the streets, the explosions of fireworks, unrestrained celebration because it had been _so_ long and they were finally safe again.

And in the remotest corner of one packed club, a program hunched over his drink and wished the pounding music was enough to block out the screams from the Iso towers.

"Mind if I join you?"

He looked up to see a MIDI program he'd collaborated with on several projects. "If you want," he muttered, downing his drink in one gulp.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Finally:

"Well, Sync, we are witnesses to the dawn of a new era."

"Yeah..." Sync winced as his sensitive hearing picked up a particularly pained wail from outside. "Glory to Clu," he said hollowly.

Another long stretch of silence, punctuated by bad music and celebration and screams.

"Syntax," Sync said slowly, "how would you feel about working on another project together?"

Syntax looked up. "Got anything in mind?"

Their intermittent partnership had always been successful. Syntax was a crowd-pleaser and could entrance an audience within nanocycles, but removed from his dynamic personality, his music was fairly standard. Sync, on the other hand, composed some of the most intricate and interesting pieces of music on the Grid, but he was shy, not the performer the public wanted. They worked well together, balancing out each others' flaws and highlighting the strengths.

And beyond that, they got along together. Both were fully aware of where the strengths and weaknesses in the collaboration lay and weren't too proud to admit it.

"Sync's the processor of this outfit," Syntax would say when asked, and Sync would smile behind his mask and nod. Which would inevitably lead to a round of light banter between the two.

Part of it was programming. They were MIDIs, and fragging good ones, and there was a lot they could relate to with each other. But more than that, despite their wildly contrasting personalities, there were certain opinions they shared. About right and wrong and what was going too far.

"Not in particular," Sync admitted. "I just feel like—" A wrenching sob and a burst of laughter. "Like now's a good time to get out of the solo business."

Understanding Sync's unspoken reasons implicitly, Syntax nodded. "Let's see what we can get up to."

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A/N: Yeah, Daft Punk! One of my main concerns after watching the new movie was, "Did they make it out okay?" I plan to answer that. :D

A note on format: The plot of this story is based on Daft Punk's _Discovery_. Mainly, the song titles as a series of prompts, so you might not want to use the album as a soundtrack. I'll make a note in the chapters where listening to the titular song won't detract from the story (in advance, "Crescendolls" will likely be entirely inspired by the song).

And in other news, I have chapter 2 completed and awaiting minor revision. (Yay!) Problem: I need the exact quote Zuse says to Clu as he's walking into the End of Line. I cannot post without it. (Boo!) And I'm not going back to the theaters a fourth time. I—and the probably half-dozen people reading this—would be in the debt of anyone who could supply the dialogue in a PM or review (hint, hint :D).


	2. Aerodynamic

_Discovery_

"Aerodynamic"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: It is perfectly acceptable to listen to "Aerodynamic" while reading this chapter. It's the most played track in my iTunes library because I was listening to it while I was writing. Actually, I recommend listening to "Aerodynamic" anytime, anywhere, for any or no reason. It's great. :)

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The End of Line was a popular club, frequented by a wide variety of programs; having served such a diverse clientele in a setting where inhibitions were lowered for dozens of cycles, they were used to frequent altercations and barely flinched when the Black Guard crashed through the roof. The sound box was heavily reinforced—no self-respecting MIDI would work without such safety precautions.

But when the Creator himself walked through the door and everything shut down, they dove for cover, ducking under the synthesizers and squeezing themselves as far back against the wall as they could.

Eventually, the sounds of battle and the de-rezzing died down.

After a few microcycles of silence Syntax moved to check what was going on, but Sync held him back, shaking his head and holding his hand up to his ear as if to hear better. Syntax listened but could discern no sound other than Castor's distinct footsteps. So many cycles of partnership had taught him that Sync's hearing was impressive even for a MIDI program, though, so he settled back.

Moments later, he caught what Sync already heard: the soft hum of an ascending elevator. The chime as it arrived was usually inaudible beneath the pulse of music and the pounding of feet, but it rang out sharply in the silence.

"The boy and Flynn are gone."

They started, sure their voice-recognition software was malfunctioning. But then Castor was speaking, and surely he couldn't be—

"I presume, Your Excellency, they perished in the elevator."

The interlopers stopped. "You presume." There was no mistake. "Find them." Footsteps, faster and lighter than most, moving across the room. "And fan out, all of you, search for survivors. I don't want any witnesses spreading word about Flynn."

They traded glances and tried to wedge themselves farther back against the wall.

More footsteps, but the first were the nearest. A pause and the sound of a door opening, then a pair of boots appeared in the sound box to match the steps.

Neither of them dared to even flinch.

For a moment, the intruder didn't move. Then feet slowly traversed the box to the back door leading to the staff room and vanished inside for a short time. They'd almost relaxed when the boots reappeared and crossed back to the door. Stopped. Turned to the synthesizers.

Their source codes dropped with each approaching step, and the sound box had never felt so cramped. Finally, the trespasser stopped directly in front of them and knelt. And they knew they were dead.

"Wait, wait!" Syntax whispered urgently anyway, waving his hands out in front of him as if they could ward of the inevitable blow. "Don't kill us! We don't know what's going on, we just play the music! That's all we're programmed for!" Rinzler reached back and grabbed his identity disk. "We're not up to anything subversive, I swear!"

"Please," Sync broke in, and Rinzler paused. "We're just MIDI programs. We don't know what happened. We can't possibly be a threat to you. We don't even know how to fight. Just let us go, and you'll never hear from us again." The ID disk thrummed threateningly. "_Please_."

Rinzler stood very still for a moment, head tilted up, perhaps to see both the programs at his mercy and the club at large. He didn't speak, but they both knew words weren't the only way to communicate, and silence could speak volumes. He was _considering_.

Then he nodded once and stood up. Almost too stunned to think, they scrambled across the floor through the open door to the staff lounge.

Rinzler watched a moment as they fled, then slipped away.

Elevator doors closed, and they collapsed on the floor, trembling.

"Oh, User," Syntax breathed as they descended. "Oh, _User_. We nearly _died_!"

There was an explosion above them and the elevator began to plummet.

"We can survive this!" Syntax yelled after he finished screaming. "Just jump in the air right before the elevator hits the ground!"

"Two problems, Syntax!" Sync shouted over the roar of their descent. "We can't see when we're about to hit the ground, _and_ _that doesn't actually work!_"

But some sort of back-up system was kicking in and the elevator slowed until it gently landed on the ground floor and the doors slid open with a surreally merry chime.

"Get up," Sync murmured. "We need to move."

"No thanks, I think I'll just lie here until things start making sense again."

"_We need to move,_" Sync repeated grimly. "Didn't you hear Clu? We're _dead_ if anyone finds us."

"Clu," Syntax mumbled, appalled. "_Clu_. How could he? All those innocent programs..."

"They were in the way of his perfection," Sync said bleakly. "You remember the Isos. We shouldn't be surprised."

For a moment, neither of them said anything. They just sat and watched the blue glow from above cast flickering shadows on the city.

"We've really got to get out of here," Syntax remarked with resignation.

The sickening gleam was fading.

"Yeah. I think so."

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A/N: The canonicity of this story depends entirely upon how fast you think Rinzler got out of there to go after Flynn and Co. The scene cut immediately after he started walking off, so I feel alright in saying he stopped to check out the back room right quick because he was nearest.

As for why he didn't kill them... :D

Another note: Everyone go thank **Macs** for the speed of this update! Thank you so much for supplying me with the lines I needed! I'd considered just writing down my best approximation and changing it when I found out for sure, but I'm too OCD.

Have some bonus points, **Macs**! You rock!

Also thank this crazy weather and my thousands of classmates who stomped around packing six inches of snow into a half-inch pane of ice. I can barely leave my room, and since classes have been canceled, I have nothing better to do than write. Updates will not typically be as speedy as this, though.


	3. Digital Love

_Discovery_

"Digital Love"

By BlackMarketTrombones

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"So what now? Try to find another club to MIDI for?"

Sync peered around a corner from a back alley. "I don't think that would be a very good idea," he said slowly, stepping out into the open after he determined the street was clear.

"What do you mean?" Syntax stepped in close behind him. "That's what we're programmed for. We're the best around!"

"Exactly." They stopped in a shadowy recess, and Sync seemed to wilt. "Programs know us, Syntax. They know we're with the End of Line. And that's a dangerous affiliation right now. It'll get out what happened," he said when Syntax made to interrupt, "or something close to it. And you know how programs talk."

Syntax was silent for a moment; then he sighed and pulled his helmet off. "There goes our glamorous mystique," he said wryly as Sync did the same. "Having a distinct style's always been a good thing until now."

"Yeah," Sync sighed. "We'd be recognized, even without the helmets. Someone would be suspicious, at least."

"So what now?" Syntax asked again, looking completely lost. "I...can't even imagine not being able to do music."

"I know. But there's more to music than just making it." Though that was their primary function, and both of them knew they'd be floundering without it. "No one knows synthesizers like we do."

"Good synth techs don't come out of unprocessed data fields!" Syntax protested.

"Then we can try to find space at a comm tower or something."

"That's not in our skill-sets!"

"It's sound, isn't it? Our programming doesn't exactly lend itself to much variety! We'll have to be _creative_."

Syntax drooped, but he still managed a wry grin. "We _do_ have a reputation for— What was that?"

Falling silent, they cocked their heads down the street to hear the distant thrum of Recognizers and the clomping of heavy feet.

They traded a glance and ran.

"Here!" Syntax called, dashing into a darkened building.

Sync followed, and they ran down to the lowest level. "Okay, we're safe from the Recognizers, but the ground troops will check indoors."

"We might not be the ones they're looking for," Syntax pointed out. "They have no reason to think anyone survived."

"So? If they find us, they'll ID us. Then we're dead anyway."

Syntax groaned. "How did MIDI-ing for a club turn out to be more illegal than what we got up to during the Purge? At least we could carry out our function back then. There is _no way_ we will survive this."

Far above them, there was the sound of footsteps entering the building.

"We'd better think something up fast," Sync muttered.

"Really. And what do you suggest? Run outside and get caught by Recognizers or stand our ground and try to fight our way past trained soldier programs?" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "I don't even know how to hold an ID disk for combat!"

"_Calm down,_ Syntax," Sync said sharply. "Just...help me look around. There might be something we can hide under."

"Because that worked so well _last_ time," Syntax grumbled.

"We're still running, aren't we?"

"Barely! That was _Rinzler_! I nearly _shorted_, I was so scared!"

"Could we do this some other time? Because I don't think Clu's soldiers will wait for us to sort ourselves out."

"I don't think it'll matter much either way."

"Listen to yourself, Syntax! You're acting—"

"Acting _what?_" Syntax snarled, slamming his fist into the wall. "Stop acting like we can find a way out of this!"

But Sync wasn't paying attention. He was studying the wall with sudden interest. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear- What are you _talking_ about?" Sync started rapping his knuckles against the wall. "Stop that! Have you forgotten about the programmed soldiers bearing down on our collective base codes? This is it! End of line!" Sync was ignoring him, still tapping on that same stretch of wall. "_Will you listen to me?_" Syntax snapped, grabbing Sync's shoulder and shoving him roughly back.

The wall gave out and they fell forward, tumbling down a sharp decline to land in a heap on the ground.

"I was _trying_—" Sync ground out, irritation muffled by Syntax's awkward landing on top of him, "—to tell you that the wall sounded hollow when you hit it."

"Oh." Syntax scrambled off his friend. "Sorry. I guess all the times I've nearly de-rezzed in the past millicycle..." He looked away. "Sorry." The sliver of light from the gap in the wall vanished as a panel slid across. "But hey, it's looking like we just might sur-"

A sudden flurry of movement, and they found themselves pinned to the floor.

"...Of course."

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A/N: No romance, despite the title. Sorry. I'm terrible at writing it, and I'm not a fan of stories with a "will they or won't they" plot. So I applied the title to their love of music; it's their entire purpose, after all.


	4. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

_Discovery_

"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"

By BlackMarketTrombones

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They awoke from forced shutdown in a plain white room with no defined exit.

"Identify yourselves, programs." Syntax jumped to his feet, startled, while Sync, composed as ever, calmly sat up and leaned against the wall. The voice that addressed them was unnaturally loud and sounded slightly distorted, sure signs of digital alteration. Which meant _serious business_.

They responded immediately.

"Sync."

"Syntax."

"State your function."

"We're MIDI programs."

There was a brief silence.

"State your purpose."

Syntax glanced at his partner, but as usual, Sync seemed content to leave the talking to him. "We...uh, don't really have one right now."

"State your _intent_, then."

"Not dying," Syntax said dryly. "That's been my priority, anyway."

"Now is probably not the best time to be a smart-aleck, Syntax," Sync scolded mildly.

"I can't speak for Sync, though. Sometimes I swear he has a directive to de-rez himself."

"We're still running."

"_Barely_—"

"_Quiet!_" The voice boomed, and they immediately fell silent. "You're not fooling anyone! How did you find us? How many of Clu's soldiers know where we are?"

"...What?" Syntax stared at the ceiling. It was as featureless as the rest of the room, but it felt more like he was addressing someone. "You're...not with the army?"

"Of course not, as you very well know—"

"We don't, actually. We were running from the Recognizers and we stumbled down here when we were trying to find a place to hide."

"You found a secret safe house the Black Guard's spent _cycles_ searching for _by accident?_" Even through modification, the skepticism was palpable.

"Not entirely," Sync spoke up at last. "The wall sounded hollow."

"No one could hear that!"

"MIDI programs," he reminded. "We're designed with good audio systems."

A scoffing sound. "Why would an army be hunting for a pair of MIDIs?"

"We're actually hoping they're not. We're hoping they think we're dead. Not us specifically, just us as programs who were at the End of Line."

There was a long silence, and when the voice spoke again, it was carefully neutral. "The club? It blew up not long ago. What happened?"

"I don't know for sure—"

"That User happened, that's what," Syntax broke in peevishly. "Then the _Creator_ happened, then Clu and the whole fragged Black Guard. So if you're going to de-rez us, could you get on with it? It'd probably be a mercy after this millicycle."

"That- That is the most corrupted thing I've ever—" The voice broke off as if interrupted.

Microcycles passed. Finally:

"A program is prepared to vouch for you." The voice sounded agitated. "_If_ you are who you say you are."

They glanced at each other, confused. Then a portion of the wall slid seamlessly back and to the side and a program stepped in. She peered at them for a moment; then her face was split by a broad smile.

"It _is_ you!" she cried, beaming.

They stared at her, face recognition software searches through cycles of memory files until—

"Gigga?" Sync said incredulously.

Syntax's eyes widened as his systems caught up and matched the face to one he hadn't seen in nearly a thousand cycles. "You're alive!" he exclaimed. "How? We heard— Did anyone else...?"

"No," Gigga said soberly, eyes suddenly haunted. "I'm the only one who made it out."

They exchanged crestfallen glances. They'd tried so hard to save those they could—

"These are the programs that saved you from the Purge?"

The program that stepped through the door was very nearly the opposite of Gigga. Her arms were crossed and her face was sculpted into a mask of impassivity, except for her eyes, which were narrowed in suspicion.

"That's right, Vector," Gigga said brightly. "This is Sync and Syntax. They hid me and some other Isos for a few centicycles until Zuse's caravan came by. Then...well, you know."

"I see." Her lips twitched into a slight frown. "I'm Vector. I'm in charge of this operation you so fortuitously stumbled upon. You say you know what happened at the End of Line?"

"Ah, yes," Syntax stammered. "Well, we were there, at least."

"That is no answer. Do you or don't you?" she demanded, glowering.

"There's no need to intimidate them," Gigga scolded. "I'm sure they'd be happy to help if you'd just ask politely."

Vector shot the cheerful Iso a dark look, but seemed calmer when she turned back to them. "Some of my programs were there, seeking an audience with Zuse from Castor," she explained. "They have not returned or contacted us, and none of the other stations have heard anything from them either. They were led by my second: tall, dark, some fragmentation over his right eye..."

They looked at each other. She sounded calm and collected, but they could pick up the faint undercurrent of worry in her voice.

"We saw him," Syntax said at last. "The Black Guard got him. I don't know about the others, but...we heard Clu come in after. He said he didn't want any witnesses."

For a split-cycle Vector looked stricken, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. "How did you survive?" she asked dispassionately.

"We hid."

"Did you now," she sneered.

"Of course we hid!" Syntax cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "We're MIDI programs, not warriors! The two of us combined don't have the combat abilities of an inactive bit!"

"Well, that will have to change if you're going to be staying with us!" Gigga interjected.

"_What?_" they all three cried in unison.

"Of course! This is a hideout for programs Clu wants de-rezzed, and it sounds like you two qualify now." She grinned wryly. "Welcome to the club."

"Gigga-" Vector started.

"I know it's sudden, Vector," Gigga interrupted, "but it's actually very convenient of them to turn up now. We'll need new comm specialists now that...now that we've lost Bartik."

Vector carefully smoothed out her facial expression. "Of...course. Why don't you show them around. I...have to take care of something."

She marched away quickly, and Gigga's face fell. "How awful," she whispered. But she almost immediately bounced back to them with a dazzling grin. "Well, come on!" she called out, bounding off. "I'll give you the tour!"

Wondering just what they'd gotten themselves into, they followed.

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A/N: Alright, I reached a bit for this one. I tried to convey that Sync and Syntax know pretty much everyone is harder, better, faster, and stronger than them when it comes to fighting, so they're trying to be cooperative to show they're not a threat. Plus, there's the suggestion that they may become harder, better, faster, and stronger in the future. :D

Though I like how the conversation at the beginning mirrors the back-and-forth at the start of the song before it builds into a bunch of different parts. :)

One thing that's always bothered me about the whole "last of his/her kind" motif is not it's prevalence in fictional settings but that genocide is _really hard_. Seriously. Even if Clu had computer-y tracking things to hunt down Isos, there would be computer-y ways around them, and computer-y people willing to help out the hapless victims. I find the concept of sole-survivors _extremely_ far-fetched; hiding seems much more plausible And the ones who survive are going to be the ones who can hide from everyone, including those who might not want them dead, so each pocket of survivors would think it's the last.

And I like the idea of Daft Punk going all Underground Railroad on Clu's base code. :D

Next up: Crescendolls! Might be a bit of a wait on this one, folks. Sorry in advance. Lovely song, not very good prompt title. Also because the ice has thawed and I can go outside. :D


	5. Crescendolls

_Discovery_

"Crescendolls"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: As the title is a portmanteau word of "crescendo" (music language for "get louder") and "dolls," this chapter is most entirely prompted by the actual music. If you thought I was reaching last chapter... :/

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"We've been operating almost as long as Clu has," Gigga chattered as she led them through a maze of twining corridors. "Vector used to be a systems analyst, pretty high up in the administration, actually, but then she found out..." She broke of with a shudder. "Anyway, she ran, bumped into Bartik—who was also on the run, overheard a sensitive communiqué working on the administration comm lines—and they've been collaborating against— Watch your step!" She skipped over a raised threshold into a room lined with shelving. "They've been collaborating against Clu together ever since. Never anything big and flashy, mostly picking up others programs who are on the run, bolstering our forces and all that. We're probably the biggest undercover operation on the Grid right now thanks to them." Her face fell. "I don't know what we'll do without Bartik."

"About that," Syntax said carefully. "I don't know if we can replace a comm specialist. We don't have any formal communications programming."

"Oh, don't worry about that." Gigga waved a dismissive hand. "Hardly anyone here is operating under their primary directive. You know sound, so you can probably improvise the rest." She grinned. "We're all about improv here. Who knows? You might be better at it than you think. I certainly never thought I could be a data-tracker before the Purge, and now look at me! Personal Information Manager to Vector herself!" She beamed, bursting with pride. "_All_ the field reports come through me to be organized and abridged so Vector can focus on the important bits.

"Of course, sometimes I'd rather be out confronting Clu more directly," she prattled, skipping through rows and rows of carefully catalogued drawers. "But Isos _never_ take the field. If Clu found out there were still some of us left... Well. I'm happy right where I am, even if the infiltrators seem so glamorous." She stopped abruptly, tapping on a key-screen, and they nearly stumbled into her. "We'll have to find someone else to head up Bartik's infiltration system, at least for now," she babbled, cheerfully oblivious. "You could manage it, I bet, but it's probably best to ease you in first. Ah, here we are!" A drawer lit up and slid forward. "Are these yours?" She pulled out their helmets.

"Um... Yes." They were MIDI programs, designed to process sound with the maximum efficiency, but Gigga's constant stream of words was difficult to sort out even for them.

"Wonderful! Dram brought them down—that's how I found out there were two intruders. So of course I had to go off to Vector—she's so excitable when Bartik's in the field! Though I guess she was justified this time." She flickered to mournful, then back to elated. Syntax tried to hide his mood whiplash. "Anyway, I went down to the holding cells, recognized you on the cameras, convinced Vector to let me talk to you, and here we are! Come on, come on, there's so much to show you!"

It was incredible how coordinated everything was. Or maybe not, considering one wrong move could mean death for the countless programs in hiding here, including what were probably the last few Isos anywhere.

"This is Headquarters!" Gigga chirped when Sync expressed his admiration of the seamless cooperation between the dozens of programs carrying out various functions she led them past. "We've got to be good! Most of us have been here for cycles."

"So how did you end up here?"

"Luck, mostly."

The two of them jumped and spun around, but Gigga just smiled, unruffled. "I was wondering when you'd show up again, Vector!" she exclaimed. "You ready to talk to them?"

"Yes, thank you." She nodded curtly. "If you'll excuse us, Gigga."

"Of course." She winked at them and spoke in a loud whisper: "Don't let her scare you. She's really a big softy under all the extraneous formality protocols." And she skipped away.

Vector's lips pursed, then relaxed into a resigned grin. "Follow me."

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A/N: Woo, shorter wait than anticipated! Also a shorter chapter than anticipated. You win some, you lose some.

"Crescendolls" has replaced "Aerodynamic" as the most played track in my iTunes. By a lot. This chapter was _hard_!

Gigga may have gotten away from me a few times. Her personality is so perfectly suited to this song, it just sort of took over as I was listening.


	6. Nightvision

_Discovery_

"Nightvision"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: This song would neither add to nor detract from your reading experience.

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Vector led them down a side corridor and into a room with a table and a few chairs. She sat and observed them over folded hands.

"Why did you work to save the Isos all those cycles ago?" she asked eventually.

They glanced at each other, uncertain where she was going.

"We're music," Sync said after a moment.

"No, that's exactly it," Syntax cut in, seeing her face turn skeptical. "Music's not just a set of programmed protocols for us. It's what we _are_. And music...isn't static. It can't be. It changes based on situations, on new circumstances on the Grid. There has to be adaptation. Innovation." He shrugged. "That's what the Isos were to us, so we never thought of them as corruption. And if they weren't corruptions, it was wrong to destroy them. Or just let them be destroyed."

Vector looked thoughtful. "And Clu?"

Another glance. "What about him?" Sync asked warily.

"I will not de-rezz you for answering contrary to my own sentiment." Vector sounded slightly aggravated, but she quickly turned wry. "Gigga would never let me hear the end of it. But I need to know if you already think he's corrupted or if I'll need to convince you of it."

"Corrupted?" Syntax frowned. "Misaligned, yeah, maybe even mal-programmed, but—"

"_Corrupted_," Vector said firmly. "I'm sure Gigga mentioned that I used to work under Clu. Even then, programs designed to be capable of direct interfacing with the Grid were rare, so I was given more access than turned out to be wise. I stumbled across a few restricted-access files and was curious." Her eyes turned hard. "You've heard of the programs disappearing?"

"That's a recent occurrence—" Syntax protested

"It's been going on for cycles," she interrupted. "Clu... He...changes them, somehow. Makes them forget themselves. It's called rectification, and it's how Clu _never_ runs out of soldiers."

"What are you—?"

"I mean," Vector said, "that every program in the army was once just like you or me."

Syntax shook his head. "Impossible. Clu wouldn't... He couldn't keep...something like that quiet for so many cycles. And if he could, why would we suddenly start hearing about the disappearances after he's been doing it so long?"

"It's gotten worse. Clu's on the move, and it seems he needs more soldiers than ever." She looked frustrated. "That's why it was so important for us to talk to Zuse. If Clu's planning something big, we need to be prepared to counter it. But we have no way to contact him if Castor's dead."

They tacitly agreed not to mention who they'd last seen Castor collaborating with until she had firsthand reasons to trust them. "Are they... Is it reversible?"

"Maybe, if we could find out how he does it. But we've never been able to get anyone close enough."

Sync and Syntax traded looks again and knew they were wondering the same thing. "Has... Can they resist it?"

"Never any of the common soldiers." She looked sad. "It's like they're wiped blank and reprogrammed with a standard set of commands. They can only carry out basic functions. Clu needs to repurpose them by hand for them to have a degree of autonomy, and only to a limited extent. Those... If an action doesn't directly contradict Clu's programming, they don't always carry it out, but it's not a conscious effort. They don't know what they're doing. They're just running on whatever is left over of their original coding. But that doesn't happen often, not that we've seen. It seems to have to agree with their codebase."

She lapsed into deep thought and missed their significant glances. Syntax was about to speak, to tell her about Rinzler, when Sync looked up suddenly alert.

"What-" A silencing hand. Syntax listened closely and heard it too.

Faint and far above them, footsteps marching in time.

"Vector!" The voice coming over the comm was half a breath from panic. "Soldiers on the first level!"

Her eyes widened, and she was gone.

.

A/N: My plan was to make their super-hearing seem like night vision (because they can tell what's going on even if they can't see it). However, exposition got away from me and that had a much smaller part. I still claim it works since they are a) pretty much stumbling around in the dark in these strange new circumstances and b) being revealed hidden secrets (as opposed to not-hidden secrets—I just wanted an adjective there :D).

I don't find this chapter particularly exciting. _Next _chapter will be exciting.


	7. Superheroes

_Discovery_

"Superheroes"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: Go ahead and listen to "Superheroes" while reading this. There is indeed jumping into the air.

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They didn't have to wait long to find out what was going on. Gigga burst in after just microcycles.

"Oh, where is she?" she cried, seeing only them.

"Vector just ran out," Syntax explained. "She got a comm—"

"So she knows. Thank Flynn. Hurry, hurry, the whole station's on red alert, and no one knows you yet, they'll think you're intruders if you're by yourself-"

"Gigga, what's going on?" Syntax interrupted.

"We've been breached," Gigga said soberly. "The station's designed in a series of levels, seven of them, and each successive floor is concealed from the previous, so the deeper we go, the safer we are. The programs on the first level managed to get out in time, so they might just think it's an abandoned smuggling safe house—"

The communicator at her ear pinged. "Second level breached!" came a faint voice. "Repeat: Second level breached!"

"_Hurry!_"

"Aren't there emergency exits?" Sync asked skipping to the side as a program ran past with a grim look and drawn disk.

"Of course, one's right up ahead." She pointed toward a shaft at the end of the corridor. "But it opens onto ground-level and there are soldiers all over this sector! We won't be able to get everyone out without being noticed, and then they'd _know_ we're here and focus their search. And then they'll find one of us Isos and we're _dead_."

They glanced at each other, thinking back to those tumultuous cycles during the Purge.

"_Life out of nothing. They're wonderful! We can't just let them be destroyed!"_

"_I know. But how can we help? We're not fighters. I don't even know how to hold a disk for combat."_

"_We'll figure out something."_

"Wait a nano, let's get out of the way," Syntax said calmly, pulling her into a side room out of the way of programs rushing back and forth. "Explain what's going on again?"

"They're going to find us," she whispered tearfully. "They'll only get more suspicious if they don't catch anyone. Then they'll search harder and get deeper and all our files are on the fifth level! They'll be able to take down the whole system!"

"Hmm, what if they caught someone?" Syntax watched Sync out of the corner of his eye. He was huddled if front of the door controls, shaking his head slightly.

"They...might be distracted and lose focus. But that would be a terrible thing to wish for!"

"Of course it would." He subtly tapped Sync's shoulder as Gigga rubbed her eyes.

_Almost_, Sync mouthed.

"Alright, one more question." He reached back and pulled off his disk. "How do you hold this properly? I've never had to fight before."

"It won't do any good if they find us," she said, but she adjusted his grip obligingly anyway. Then she noticed Sync. "What are—?"

"Done," Sync said, straightening up with a satisfied smile.

Gigga glanced between them, confused, as they stepped back into the hallway. "Good luck to you, Miss Gigga," Syntax said cheerfully. "It's been a pleasure."

Her eyes widened in realization and she dove, but too late. The door slid shut and sealed, controls locked from Sync's tampering. She pounded on it, but her blows were muffled.

Syntax waved and turned to his partner, sliding his helmet over his head. "Shall we?"

Sync's own wry grin disappeared beneath his helmet. "After you."

The emergency exit opened into a secluded nook sequestered between two teetering buildings. They climbed into one though a broken building and peered out the front. A small army was clustered down the street a ways, outside the building they'd taken shelter in earlier, but there were plenty of soldiers scattered about the rest of the area.

"What now?" Syntax asked, shrinking back as a small patrol trooped past. "Any option where we might be able to avoid de-rezzing has my vote."

"Well, I have one idea..."

One explanation and brief argument later, Syntax strode out the front door.

"Halt!" A pair of soldiers were on him in a nanocycle. "Identify yourself!"

"Syntax, MIDI program." He glanced around furtively, glad for the discretion his helmet granted. More guards moved away, content to leave the placid intruder to the few who'd accosted him.

"You are guilty of conspiracy and subterfuge," one of them said after a moment, doubtlessly having run an internal background check on the name.

"Oh, are those the charges?" He spotted a promising alleyway nearby.

"You are sentenced to de-resolution."

"That's a shame." He raised his hands appeasingly as they drew their batons. "Well, I wouldn't want to be accused of obstructing justice."

Sync's identity disk punched through one's shoulder.

Heads turned, and Syntax flailed wildly at the other's back, flinching as he felt the blow strike. But there was no time to dwell on it. "_C'mon!_" he shouted, pelting down the street. Sync dove out the window he'd taken aim from and fell in behind him. They reached the alley and scrambled through another window. Feet—_lots_ of them—tramped by outside as they scurried up a flight of stairs.

"Nice shot, by the way," Syntax murmured once they were relatively safe.

"Not really." Sync stopped at a window. Soldiers were moving away from the building Vector's band of rebels were concealed under. They heard some clomping around the first floor. "I was aiming for the other one. Think we can make it?" he asked, gesturing to an open window across a dingy alley before his companion could complain.

"One way to find out." Syntax jumped.

.

A/N: This was crazy fun to write, so much so that I had trouble figuring out how to get them out of that situation. I tried to keep the combat limited and can only hope I didn't make them seem too competent at it.


	8. High Life

_Discovery_

"High Life"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: You'd be fine listening to the track with this one.

.

"Never again," Syntax gasped, collapsing against an old monitor. "You hear me? We are just not the hero-ing types."

"I'll make a note on that," Sync muttered, ducking as a beam of light passed by a nearby window. Soldiers, Recognizers... Either Clu _really_ wanted them dead, or someone suspected they knew something about the underground chambers. Or both.

"Do you think they're alright?"

"I don't know. There's nothing we can do if they aren't. We need to worry about us right now." Silence, and Sync peered out the window, considering. "I have an idea," he said at last.

"Oh, _Users_, no," Syntax groaned. "I remember your _last_ plan."

"You didn't have to be the distraction. You insisted!"

"Well, I couldn't let _you_ go out there. You're _terrible_ at talking!"

Sync sighed and dropped the subject. "This is better," he insisted. "No direct confrontations."

"I hope not." Syntax dropped his head. "I _killed_ a program."

"No fighting at all," Sync said quickly. "We just need to get to that army outpost."

"_What?_ Are you out of your processor? If you want to turn yourself in, there's a dozen squadrons who'd be happy to oblige you right outside!"

"Just listen for a nano, Syntax! All the soldiers are already out looking for us. They'd _never_ think to check in their own base! And there's bound to be all sorts of transport there; we can grab one and run for the Outlands."

"For the— No way! We won't last two nanocycles out there!"

"Well, we can't stay in the city!"

"Neither of us knows how to fly, and Light Cycles malfunction off-Grid!"

"We'll delete that bridge when we come to it. Come on!"

They pressed on, ducking and diving and exceedingly that glad whatever programs occupied this sector had made themselves scarce to avoid Clu's troops. The base was too far from the nearest building to jump, so they clambered back down to ground level and broke a window.

"That probably set off an alarm," Syntax muttered as he pulled Sync in behind him.

"That's okay. I think someone saw me anyway."

They glanced around themselves. The room was lined from wall to wall with batons and Light Cycles in various states of assembly.

"Perfect." Sync grinned. "Quick, pick one out."

"Uh... Sync..."

"_Oooo_, vintage! Very nice!"

"Sync..."

"I'm taking this one, you can go find your own—"

"Sync!" Sync looked up sharply, surprised desperation in his friend's voice. "I, uh... Well, I don't know how to drive a Light Cycle."

Sync looked incredulous. Syntax looked miserable. "_Why didn't you say something earlier?_"

"_I didn't think we'd make it this far!_"

Sounds from the other sides of the window and one wall.

"Get over here." Sync beckoned toward an old-fashioned white Light Cycle.

"That old clunker?" Syntax eyed it dubiously.

"It's _vintage_," Sync insisted. "None of this stuff looks standard-issue, so they're probably all confiscated, which means they took it from someone off the street, which means it'll run."

"Can't we take something newer?"

"The more modern models have open seating. You'll fall off."

There was a creaking sound and the far wall started to rise.

Still anxious, Syntax clambered on behind Sync.

"What if it doesn't work?" he asked as the dome slid over them, squishing him uncomfortably against Sync's back.

A thunderous roar of the engine, and Sync's grin was feral. "It does." Soldiers started ducking under the rising wall. "Hold on."

"Hold on to _what_?" Syntax wanted to ask, but before he could even open his mouth, they took off.

Sync cheered as soldiers dove out of their way. "Look at us go!" he raved. "This thing is _incredible_!"

"Oh, Flynn preserve us!" Syntax wailed, arms wrapped tightly around Sync's middle as the Light Cycle dodged and weaved.

Sync laughed exuberantly as he took a corner at a suicidal clip. "Some old clunker, eh?"

But by then the disarrayed troops had mustered enough order to mount a pursuit and he had to focus on outmaneuvering them. Their Light Cycle outpaced the others with laughable ease and could turn sharper corners without any loss of speed, and the soldiers fell farther and farther behind until—

"They stopped," Sync said, surprised. "Why would they—?"

"Ah, Sync," Syntax interrupted, staring at the ground passing rapidly by. "Where did the road go?"

Sync whipped his head around so quickly the entire Cycle wobbled. "Off-Grid," he murmured, stunned. "That's _impossible_!"

"Clearly not," Syntax grumbled. "Can we...stop somewhere? Please? They might send someone after us by air, and there's _no way_ this can outrun Light Jets. We should find a place to hide. Or something."

Sync frowned, clearly unenthusiastic, but pulled off underneath a low-hanging outcrop that would conceal them from the air. Syntax tumbled off and flopped on the ground.

"You," he panted, "_are a terrible driver!_"

Sync smirked. "At least I'm _a_ driver."

Groaning imprecations, Syntax flung an arm over his face and tried to stop the world spinning.

.

A/N: Written since Flynn's Light Cycle went sadly under-used in the movie and that is a crying shame.


	9. Something About Us

_Discovery_

"Something About Us"

By BlackMarketTrombones

.

"So. We're off the Grid. Vast plains of unprocessed code. Huge, trackless...tracts—no, that sounds stupid. Swathes? Whatever. There's a whole lot of nothing in particular." Syntax rolled over from where he'd been lying since he toppled off the Light Cycle. "What now?"

Sync glanced up. He was seated against a rise in the land with his helmet propped against his knee, shielded from view from the Recognizers and Light Jets they occasionally heard passing overhead by the same outcrop that sheltered the stolen Light Cycle. "Don't know. It's your turn to come up with the plan."

Syntax snorted. "_That_ would turn out great. You come up with the ideas and I put 'em into action. That's the deal."

"What deal?" Sync teased. "I don't remember agreeing to any _deal_."

"It's implicit," Syntax insisted. "Don't mess with a thousand cycles of success."

It was Sync who snorted this time. "Getting credit for _my_ ideas. I should go solo."

"What, you think you could complete my function? _Ha!_"

"You're probably right," Sync mused. "We're a two-program act. Don't know if I even remember how to go it on my own anymore." He grinned. "'Sides, then I'd have to deal with adoring fans! No thanks, you can keep 'em!"

"The public loves me! Who am I to deny them?"

"You're a multiprocessor for attention and everyone knows it."

If their laughter was too loud and a little hysterical, neither of them commented on it.

"_User_," Syntax breathed after they'd gotten ahold of themselves. "A millicycle ago we were running the synths at the End of Line, not a care on the Grid." He drooped a bit. "Look at us now."

"We're still running."

"That's not much."

"It's enough." Sync sighed. "Listen, Syntax. Yeah, we're fugitives, and yeah, we're deep in over-processed binary strands, but _we're running_. Up against Clu. System Administrator. Ruler over all the Grid. That's not nothing."

"Yeah..." Syntax suddenly grinned. "We're pretty hardcore, aren't we?"

"Don't go getting an inflated conception of your channel capacity, now."

"Does that sound like something I'd do, Sync?"

"As a matter of fact—" Sync fell silent and whipped his head around with an urgency Syntax had become all too familiar with.

"Soldiers?" he whispered. "Frag, what is _with_ us this millicycle? Did a User flag us when we weren't looking?"

"I don't know the sound." Sync frowned, clearly perturbed. And with good reason. All MIDIs had good audio classification software, and Sync had customized his to be the best on the Grid. "It...doesn't sound too close, I think. I'll check."

"Be careful!" Syntax hissed. His audio sensors were starting to pick up what Sync had been hearing: an unpleasant series of tapping noises bearing down on them.

Sync cautiously inched out into the open, standing on his toes to peer over their shelter. "I can't see." He backed up farther. "I don't know if—"

Without warning, something long and slender slammed down from above. It clicked as it hit the ground, the sound oddly muted, perhaps by the sharp point the object came to at its end. More quickly followed, and Sync's startled yelp turned into a scream as one of them slashed against his leg.

"_Sync!_" Syntax cried, running out into the open as his friend fell. He skidded to a halt as the assaulter came into full view.

_Grid bug._

Chance combinations of raw code somehow giving rise to this semblance of life; mindless, misaligned—and one of Clu's many arguments against the Isos. They shared the same origins, after all, arising from the unprocessed material of the Sea of Simulation. And grid bugs seemed to swarm to Isos just as they did to each other.

The grid bug loomed over Sync, its single data input component casting a sickening fuchsia hue over his crumpled form. It moved in on him.

Swallowing, Syntax stepped forward.

.

A/N: Another love song, so I just used the title. Sorry about the length; the next two will be short too, but the two afterward...will not. Sorry also about the cliffie; I'll try not to leave you in suspense for too long. ;)


	10. Voyager

_Discovery_

"Voyager"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: Go ahead. Listen to "Voyager." It's jammin'.

.

Syntax fought the urge to recoil and flung his disc with trembling hands. It sailed up in a wobbling arc, passed by the grid bug's flank, and clattered forlornly to the ground where it completely failed to do anything remotely useful.

"Flynn-_fraggit_," he moaned. Sync was scuttling backwards as best as he could, but his damaged leg was useless and dragging it along was slow and clearly painful. The grid bug stood still for a moment, eyepiece flicking between the two programs as if indecisive; then it started bearing down on Sync again.

Syntax took off in the opposite direction and snatched his disc up from where it lay. There was a thunking sound and he turned in time to see Sync just barely roll out of the way of the grid bug's jab.

Terrified, Syntax squeezed his eyes shut and threw. An awful whining hum, and he looked up in time to see the grid bug fall to pieces, pierced through the main joint conjunction. He stared, shocked and nauseated, then ran across the clearing.

"Sync! _Sync!_" he cried, falling to his knees next to his friend. "You okay, buddy?"

"D'you jus' throw with your eyes closed?" Sync mumbled, words slurred by system failure. "Tryin' to de-rez me. Easier ways to go solo."

"None so satisfying, though." Syntax let out a hysterical little laugh, wishing he could purge the image of Sync's crumbling leg from his memory banks.

"More comin'. Saw 'em."

"Right. We're getting out of here." Syntax glanced around wildly and his eyes fell on the Light Cycle. "How do you start that thing?"

"Release lever an' twist handle at same time. More twist, more speed. Lean into turns. Don' break it... _Vintage_." He dissolved into incoherency.

"Creator above," Syntax murmured, hauling Sync beneath the outcrop and heaving him onto the Light Cycle, "Who's knowledge is complete, grant us such strength that those troubles we suffer we may overcome through Your assistance."

He clambered on in front of Sync, helmets forgotten-they didn't matter now, _nothing_ mattered with Sync in danger-and gripped the handles, trying not to panic. He could hear the other grid bugs now...

They took off like a shot, wobbling haphazardly. Syntax peeked behind them to see grid bugs swarming over where they'd just been and nearly crashed. He jerked the throttle back to a more manageable speed.

"Oh, Users," he breathed. Sync was a dead weight against his back-there would be no helpful ideas or comfortingly dry wit from him.

Inevitably, they crashed. The seemingly innocuous stretch of land before them turned into rough terrain that he couldn't keep control over. The bike slid along its side and Syntax fully expected to de-rez at any moment, but this Cycle was made of tougher stuff than the ones on the Game Grid and stayed intact.

"_Fraggit!_" Syntax shouted, slamming his fist into the ground. He stumbled away, pulling Sync after him, and collapsed against a steep rise. "Fraggit..."

Sync's circuitry was sickly and pale, but he was stirring. "We d'rezzed?" he mumbled feebly, eyes still closed.

Syntax laughed with relief. "Oh ye of little faith. I got us out in one piece. That precious bike of yours, too."

"Oh." He squinted up. "Ya sure? Feel like...run over...by..." He trailed off faintly.

"Hey. Hey, stay with me, Sync," Syntax muttered urgently. "We— We'll fix you up." He peered at Sync's leg. The raw edges of broken coding stretched from below his knee to halfway up his thigh. "We'll think of something."

.

A/N: I based Syntax's "Creator above" moment on the Catholic Prayer in Time of Danger. Then I realized that might be a teensy bit sacrilegious. I can only assure you that such was not at all my intention. I couldn't think up something that sounded suitably somber and sincere, and I picked a Catholic prayer because they're easy to find and sound lovely.

Edit: **sharinganavenger** pointed out to me that I uploaded previous chapter instead of this one. How embarrassing! Sorry, and thanks to **sharinganavenger** for letting me know!


	11. Veridis Quo

_Discovery_

"Veridis Quo"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: You can listen to "Veridis Quo" on this one if you want. It doesn't add anything, but it's not distracting and is a great song.

.

Staying still seemed to be the best for Sync—he soon recovered from the shock of his injury enough to speak coherently. Physically, however, he was still getting worse. The ragged edges of his wound were deteriorating at a slow but constant pace, and both of them were at a loss for what to do.

"It's your turn to come up with the plan, remember?" Sync joked.

Syntax smiled weakly. "That's not the deal."

A brief silence, then Sync sighed. "Syntax... If— Well, if I—"

"_Don't,_" Syntax said sharply. "Just— You'll make it. We'll...think of something. We always do."

"Yeah." Sync smiled fondly, but his eyes were sad. "Just... Don't think it was your fault."

"Course not," he said, the forced lightheartedness in his voice belying his stricken expression. "You'll notice _I_ didn't get fragged by a grid bug."

"I'm still running! You call that fragged?"

Syntax raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Can you walk under your own power?" Sync looked a bit sheepish. "Then you're fragged. We just have to figure out how to make you...not fragged."

"You're very eloquent this millicycle."

Syntax snorted. "We're in the _Outlands_. I'll save my pretty words for when we're back in front of an audience. And we will be," he said sternly, seeing Sync about to speak up. "Clu can't last forever, not if he keeps snatching up programs. Someone will notice. Someone _has_ noticed. It's...just a matter of time before we can go back to the city. Maybe we'll even get a parade—we saved that resistance, didn't we? And all those Isos. Survived Clu and Rinzler and Flynn only knows how many soldiers; we're pretty hot stuff."

"...Right." Sync was starting to look sickly again. "And you can dazzle the adoring masses with your innovative performing style."

"It's your ideas that do it," Syntax continued, mulishly ignoring Sync's obvious and growing pallor. "Couldn't do it without you. We're a _team_, and the best, and...and..." His face fell, forlorn. "What'll— What would I do without you?"

Sync smiled, affectionate and sad. "You'll figure something out."

Syntax looked stricken, but tried to hide it behind his own grin. "We had some good times."

"The best."

"Got up to some pretty wild stuff."

"Smuggling Isos was my favorite."

"I liked that time we switched Castor's cocktail with Bacn."

Sync's bark of laughter turned into a cough. "Yeah... Syntax?"

"Hmm?"

"Take care of yourself." He smiled. "And thanks for the ride."

Syntax looked crestfallen. "Right back at ya."

And then there was the sound of an explosion from behind them.

.

A/N: This killed me.

There is no Latin word "veridis" that I know of or could find, but there is a "veritis." Since Latin was primarily a spoken language and /t/ is a lot like /d/ (and "veridis quo" mixed up makes "Disquoveri" but "veritis quo" doesn't), I decided to just go with "veritis," which is the plural dative and ablative forms of "veritus, verita, veritum," an adjective meaning "respected and revered" or "dreaded and feared." Then there's "quo," which is the singular ablative of "qui" and "quod" (yes, I know it doesn't match "veritis" in case or number—I'm kind of grasping at straws here), adjectives and relative pronouns meaning "who, what, that, or which."

So the (very) rough translation I'm going with is "who or that which is respected or feared." So you have Syntax, who clearly respects Sync as his friend and partner and is currently fearful for his life.

:D

**SuperMoose** thinks this makes me a nerd. I'm writing Tron fanfiction; I think my nerdhood is pretty well-established.


	12. Short Circuit

_Discovery_

"Short Circuit"

By BlackMarketTrombones

.

Eventually, the light from the explosion dimmed to where they could see.

"Tower's gone."

"I think I noticed, Sync, thanks."

They peered over the rise out across the Sea of Simulation. Syntax decided not to tell Sync they'd nearly crashed right over the ledge and across the narrow shore into the Sea. He hadn't even known they were so close to the shoreline.

"What do you think happened?" he asked after a long stretch of silence.

Sync didn't say anything at first, simply tilting his head contemplatively at the horizon. "No idea."

"Ah. Me neither. Who do you think won?"

"What?"

"You know, who won: Clu or the Creator? There's no way anyone but them could have—"

There was a splash and a clatter and they whipped their heads around in time to see a masked figure, glowing brilliant blue, drag himself out of the Sea. They shrank down farther behind the outcropping; after all the recent chaos, neither was feeling particularly comfortable around unfamiliar programs.

The foreign program didn't make any aggressive moves, though; he just lay collapsed on the ground, internal systems humming loudly as if strained and circuitry gleaming bright, bold blue.

Sync squinted. "You know," he whispered, "he looks like... Nah, never mind."

"No, what?"

"Well, except for the colors, he looks- No. Just... No."

Syntax looked at him curiously but dropped the subject at his obstinate expression. "Well, he looks like he needs—"

They started as he moved, sitting up sluggishly with fingers fumbling at the clasps holding his helmet in place.

"Userless derivative of a _bit!_" he shouted hoarsely, hurling the helmet out into the Sea. He flopped back, one arm flung over his face.

"Can Rinzler talk?" Sync murmured

"How would _I_ know? Why do you even—?"

"Hush! I want to hear!"

"Clu..." He sounded tired and defeated and inexplicably sorrowful. "Frag you..."

There was a descending whine of shutdown and the blue gleam faded to a glimmer.

"Is he...still running?" Syntax asked after a moment. "I mean, clearly he's not de-rezzing, but he doesn't look so good."

"Let's find out."

"What? No!" Syntax grabbed Sync's shoulder and pulled him back from the decline.

"Why not? He doesn't seem to be a fan of Clu."

"I meant _you_ can't go! You're half-nulled!"

"Yeah, so if he turns out to be trouble, you're the one with the better chance of escaping."

"Frag _that_!" He peered back at the still figure. "I'll go." And jumped.

"_Careful!_" Sync whispered.

"_I know!_" Syntax hissed in reply. He crept forward. No movement. He reached out.

And was suddenly flat on his back, staring up at the fiercest expression he'd ever seen. And a face he could never fail to recognize.

Something whizzed through the air, and his assailant dodged the flying identity disk by a binary's-breadth. He spun with acrobatic precision and caught it on its return trajectory, jumping to his feet and making ready to throw it back at Sync.

"Wait, wait!" Syntax cried. "_Tron!_"

Dead silence as everyone froze.

"_Really?_" Sync croaked, shocked face peeking above the rise. "I thought—" He overbalanced and tumbled forward, yelping.

"Sync!" Syntax shouted, dashing over.

"S'alright," he groaned. "Just...lost my balance. Little dizzy."

Still fussing over his friend, Syntax kept half a wary eye on the third party. Even blinking in confusion, the legendary security program—if it was really him—possessed an undeniable air of strength and dignity.

"Is...this yours?" he asked eventually, proffering the appropriated disk.

"Mine," Sync muttered as Syntax cautiously accepted it. "Were attackin' my friend."

"Security subroutines. Wasn't thinking straight." He shook his head as if to clear it. "Sorry."

Syntax watched as he gingerly lowered himself to the ground a short distance away. Having heard him speak, there was no question: it had been cycles and cycles since the times before Clu's rise to power and the city's Chief Defender was never the most extroverted of that acclaimed administrative triumvirate, but state-of-the-art sound recognition software could still match this voice to memory files of ancient security announcements.

"You're Tron," he said, stunned. "You really are. But— You— How?"

Tron sighed wearily, and Syntax noticed how completely exhausted he appeared. Cracked circuitry, frayed strands of code-he looked like he'd run a full centicycle shift with no down-time. "It's a long story. And your friend doesn't have that much time—"

He was interrupted without warning by a burst of movement—a grid bug clambering up out of the Sea. It loomed over them, appraising them in its baleful gaze, and lashed out. Before Syntax even had time to yell, Tron had snatched up both of their identity disks and flung them with terrifying precision, neatly bisecting its eyepiece and slicing off the nearest encroaching limb. It screeched and fell back, de-rezzed before it hit the Sea, and Tron calmly held out the borrowed disks.

"_Knew_ it!" Sync crowed suddenly. "You _are_ Rinzler!"

Syntax gaped, first at his delirious friend, then at Tron, _who was making no move to deny it_, and noticed the distinctive circuitry patterns. And realized.

"You were _rectified_..." he murmured, aghast.

Tron immediately snapped all his attention toward him. It was intimidating. "How do you know about that?" he demanded suspiciously.

"We…heard it from someone not long ago. When we were running for our _lives_. From Clu. Who wants us _dead_ because we were at the End of Line when the Creator burst in. So we're not on his side if that's what you're thinking."

Tron's eyes were narrowed; then they widened in realization. "You're the MIDI programs," he murmured, amazed. "How did you survive?"

"I...don't know," Sync replied, a bit startled. "You— Rin— You just...didn't kill us."

"You didn't say you'd seen Flynn." Tron looked distant and a bit confused, as if he was trying to remember something but couldn't quite get at it. "Clu... He said he didn't want witnesses to spread word about Flynn. So if you hadn't seen Flynn, those orders didn't apply to you."

"And your original coding is to prevent harm to programs," Sync said with dawning comprehension. "So you did." Tron was looking suspicious again, but another part of what he'd said finally registered. "Wait a nano! _What did you say about Sync?_"

"I have…experience with injuries," he said quietly. "Several of his main energy conduits are ruptured, and civilian internal repair software isn't designed to deal with that kind of damage. He has a quarter-millicycle, maximum."

Syntax was speechless. He looked to his friend for comfort, reassurance, _anything_, but Sync was mumbling incoherently, apparently unable to focus on the conversation about his imminent de-resolution.

"Can't you _do something_?" he begged, but Tron shook his head.

"I know the procedure, but I can't carry it out."

"_Why not?_"

"It requires a direct interface. I wasn't designed with that skill." He looked genuinely sympathetic. "I'm sorry."

But Syntax didn't need sympathy, he needed- "Wait. Direct interface? That's all?"

"Well, mostly. The method is complicated—"

"But you know it? You could explain it to someone?" He hardly dared to hope.

Tron nodded, but he looked nonplussed. "It's not a common gift. And it would take too long to find someone; moving him would only make it worse."

"But it can be done." He stood up, determined, and held out Sync's identity disk. "Look out for him while I'm gone."

"Of course." Whatever Tron thought of his desperate bid, he seemed to accept it. "Be careful, and quick. Grid bugs swarm."

"Right." Syntax headed over the ridge toward the Light Cycle with fresh determination. "I'll be right back."

.

A/N: Finally, a chapter with some decent length (and by "decent length," I mean I broke the 1000-word threshold)! Alas, though "Short Circuit" is a great song, it does not at all fit the tone of this chapter. Go listen to it anyway.

Also, one of the most fun things about writing this story was coming up with computer-y ways of saying things (mostly curses). Tron's opening line is my favorite. :D

On another note: Canon character! AAAAHH! This makes me nervous. Poorly characterized OCs are mocked. Poorly characterized canon characters are flame bait.


	13. Face to Face

_Discovery_

"Face to Face"

By BlackMarketTrombones

.

"Impossible," Vector was saying.

Hurtling across the Grid at suicidal speeds, dodging grid bugs and through eerily empty streets on a Light Cycle he could barely control, finally being found and explaining the situation back at the Sea—Syntax had no more patience for civility. "What do you _mean_ '_impossible_?'" he demanded, frustrated.

"I _mean_," she said sharply, "that I can't spare the programs. Clu is gone—half the army is gone! This is a once in a running-time opportunity to seize control of the city! I won't jeopardize this operation because of some program you found washed up out of the Sea!"

Gigga, standing anxiously nearby, looked like she wanted to speak, but she didn't have the chance.

"_Did you not hear me?_" Syntax demanded, loud enough that the sundry programs bustling around them stopped and stared. "That program is _Tron_! _The_ Tron! Defender of the Grid and all free programs! Remember him?

Her eyes narrowed. "Your data supply is faulty—"

"I _never_ forget a voice! _Never!_ Not even after a thousand cycles!"

"Then where's he been all this time?" Vector snapped. "Awfully coincident for him to suddenly show up just when we have a chance to topple Clu." When he didn't reply immediately, she nodded sharply and turned to leave.

Syntax glanced at the eavesdropping programs and decided it didn't matter what they thought as long as Sync made it out all right.

"If you want to talk about coincidences, I've got one for you," he called after her casually. "It's amazing how quickly Clu found a replacement for him. I mean, _everyone_ agreed Tron was the best security program on the Grid, but it seems like barely a centicycle after he disappeared Clu had a new one just as good. From out of nowhere. _Awfully_ coincident."

She'd stopped, but she didn't turn around. He pressed on. "Another thing? When we were attacked by the grid bug, he fought it off with our disks. _Both_ of them. Think about it, Vector," he said, tasting victory as she straightened and the programs around them started whispering. "What's the most dangerous thing on the Grid? _Information_. And here you have someone who's been with Clu since the beginning, who knows about repurposing and who has watched him operate for cycles. And has every reason to want him _dead_. And what will it cost you? A few programs from your main strike? Worst case scenario, you take Clu's point-man out of the picture."

Vector stood still for a moment. "Codec." A nearby program started. "Grab Dram and meet us in the Light Jet chamber in thirty micros." She turned to Syntax sharply, eyes hard. "You'd better hope you're right."

Syntax had worried he'd have trouble finding them again on the featureless shore but he needn't have been concerned. He could hear the sounds of battle from halfway across the Outlands.

Sync was offline when they arrived, his limp form tucked away in a little cleft in the shoreline, and Tron stood over him protectively. He was injured and obviously running on back-up power, but his stance was steady and he hurled Sync's disk through an encroaching grid bug with a flourish no one could mistake.

"It _is_ Rinzler," one of Vector's guards, Codec, murmured above the clash of battle.

Another grid bug struck. Tron caught its leg through the center of the disk and snapped it off with a flick of his wrist. It keened and dissolved away, but more filled its place.

"Take out those grid bugs!" Vector shouted, and they all descended.

Syntax ran to Sync and huddled over him until the noise died down.

"You are capable of direct interfacing?" Tron asked. Sparks played over his frame where circuitry was ruptured and he was favoring one leg slightly, but his voice didn't even sound strained. "You should hurry. He doesn't have much time."

"Lay down your weapon." If Vector was nervous, she didn't sound it.

Tron lightly placed the disk on the ground and stepped back a ways, hands raised placatingly. "You'll need that to repair him."

She picked it up. "I'm told you know something about rectification."

Eyes flashed with carefully restrained anger. "I've seen it done."

Vector didn't look impressed. "And this pertains to repairs?"

"That was its original purpose." Tron sounded sad this time. "To repair damaged or malfunctioning programs. But it can't revive anyone from de-resolution." He glanced at Sync significantly.

"What is the procedure?" she asked, though she didn't look entirely convinced.

"This is how you access the cerebral complex—"

Syntax didn't understand half of what they were talking about, both parties raising their voices to be heard across the prudent gap between them, but he could tell the strands of orange coding that suddenly cropped up among healthy white were off somehow.

"Extract that fragmented portion."

Vector's eyes were narrowed in concentration as she manipulated coding. "What now?" she asked, releasing the corrupted bits.

"You should just douse it in raw coding in this case."

"'In this case?'"

"In the case where he doesn't have time for anything more complex." Tron nodded at Sync, who was beginning to flash deep crimson.

"And just where am I supposed to find unrefined data out here?" Vector demanded before she realized where she was. "Never mind." She walked over to the shoreline and dunked the disk in the Sea for a moment. "What is this supposed to do?"

"His coding remembers how it should be, it just doesn't have the capacity to repair itself fast enough to counter systems failure," Tron explained. "Since you identified and removed the impaired parts and provided the necessary materials to replace them, everything should just—" Tiny white lines of code swirled and connected to broken edges. "—fall into place."

"Wow," Dram breathed, then snapped his attention back to Tron when Vector glowered at him.

"Now?" she asked.

"Insert the identity disk so the repairs can assimilate." He looked down as Sync's circuitry flickered at an alarming pace. "_Quickly_."

"Back up," Vector said grimly, striding forward to where Syntax was propping Sync against his side. She took a moment to direct a glare at Tron as he stepped back. "This had _better_ work."

Tron's neutrality slipped into restrained irritation. "If it doesn't, he won't be any worse off."

Sync's entire body seized up at the connection and almost immediately went limp again. For a breathless nanocycle, nothing happened. Then the flickering stopped and lines of code slowly knit themselves back together.

"Thank the Creator," Syntax breathed, clutching his friend like a lifeline.

"You really are Tron." Vector looked like she wished her face-recognition software was malfunctioning. "And Rinzler." If Tron shifted subtly into a more balanced stance, no one commented on it. "How?"

"I had thought you had some knowledge of rectification." Tron's voice was perfectly even and his expression calmly detached, but he held himself with a still tension that reminded Syntax of a caesura.

"Only that it exists. We _have_ come into contact with repurposed programs before, but never any that seem to have recovered themselves." The suspicion in her voice was subtle, but present. "You are the only exception."

"Not...entirely." A shower of sparks burst from breached energy conduits, and he winced. "I don't know if this is permanent. Even if it is, I'm not...quite right. Bits are still off. I don't...know how I'll react to all stimuli."

Syntax tried to imagine being uncertain of basic programming, to know that one's fundamental purpose might be corrupted. It sounded terrifying.

"If I start to revert, you should attack in a group." He frowned, but it was more frustrated than worried or sad. "One versus five—well, three, if you'll forgive me," he corrected, nodding at Sync and Syntax. "You can probably keep your loses minimal."

Vector stared. "You're half-crashed."

Tron nodded.

"You don't even have a weapon!"

"Make sure I don't get ahold of one of yours," he added as a polite afterthought.

"You can't be serious!" Syntax cried, appalled. But then he remembered disks flying easily through the air and a fierce red gleam.

"It would be best, considering the alternatives." For a brief nano, a thousand cycles showed on his face.

Vector looked thoughtful. "I think," she said slowly, "that it would be in everyone's best interests to avoid that. Because of Clu, I lost my— We've lost many good programs. Aside from the obvious advantage your experience and knowledge could bring to our resistance, you... The very idea of you is something we never dared hope for. A program who came back to himself after Clu's tampering. I know you say you're not entirely well-aligned, but if you were repaired—"

"It's possible with proper rectification," Tron broke in, "but I lost my—" He fell silent, eyes riveted to the darkened disk Vector held up.

"I brought a blank in case Syntax wasn't glitching out of his processor," she explained casually, spinning it around her fingers.

"I see." Tron executed a sharp about-face and folded his hands smartly in front of himself. "Carry on."

Vector approached him with a caution Syntax thought was excessive until again he remembered red light reflecting off a featureless black mask. Dram and Codec stayed in place but ready to leap into action if Tron so much as twitched. He didn't, though, even when the blank disk connected and uploaded a lifetime in a blue arc. It seemed to take a long time—which, Syntax realized, made sense; Tron was supposed to be the oldest program on the Grid, brought over by the Creator from a different system before there was anything but the most basic platform in place. He had been running a long time.

Once the upload was complete, Vector stepped back and the intricate process of rectification began again. It was far less straightforward than it had been for Sync; every strand of coding had to be combed through for any sign of the reddish tint which indicated the influence of foreign directives, and he turned out to be damaged much more subtly.

Bits of green stuck out amongst the blue, the beginnings of a virus, Tron said, but he insisted that his own highly-efficient internal repairs would be able to sort it out.

"The Sea of Simulation is just raw data," he explained. "It clings to processed data-forms and breaks them down bit by bit, so the virus Clu used to prevent Isos from emerging again doesn't last forever. He's had to renew his poison from time to time. It seems that it's worn out enough that life can recover the initial infection. Of course, that means grid bugs are able to form now as well."

Occasionally, Tron would identify a filament that seemed unaltered only for further examination to reveal an influence so subtle it was almost impossible to see. Once, he pointed out a segment only to retract his objection a moment later and then reverse his judgment again, looking confused. Vector's scrutiny uncovered an orange tinge that blended evenly with blue.

"Clu was very clever," Tron said woodenly. "Internal repair systems try to fight against invasive directives, so any emergence of original coding was reprogrammed to be treated as a malfunction. Any programs with a chance to shake off Clu's alterations identified themselves for further rectification."

His voice was bitterly unhappy, and Syntax wondered how many times Rinzler had gone to Clu for "repairs." Somehow it made Tron even more of a tragic figure. The early cycles of the Grid had been administrated almost entirely by Tron and Clu. Flynn was, of course, the ultimate authority, but he was often away for long stretches of time. Not so with Tron and Clu; they were always there, working for the betterment of the Grid and its inhabitants, and were often together. They may have grown apart in the cycles after the Isos appeared—they _must_ have for Clu to have...done what he did—but the betrayal must cut all the more deeply for the friendship between them.

Syntax glanced down at Sync. He was motionless and in shutdown, but the physical damage left by the grid bug's assault was gone.

"What is _that_?"

Syntax looked up at Vector's startled tone. The coding rotating slowly above the disk was a massive stretch of deep crimson, and she looked uneasy at the prospect of repairing all of it.

"Memory files," Tron explained shortly. "It would be disadvantageous to try to alter them."

Syntax felt ill.

Eventually they decided they'd done the best they could for the time being. Vector approached and, after a brief moment of consideration, handed the disk to Tron. He swiftly concealed his surprise and accepted it. "You might want to back up," he warned.

Syntax soon saw why.

Tron stiffened at the connection, then stumbled to the side, face twisted into a pained grimace. His circuitry flashed to blinding and sparks spewed out of breaks that slowly knitted themselves back together. He flung out an arm to brace himself against the rise in the land. After a few tense microcycles, the light dimmed and he sank to the ground.

"Are... Are you alright?" Codec asked nervously.

"Yeah," Tron gasped. "Better. Much better. Great, really. Just...assimilation's always rough. Usually best to be shutdown."

Syntax scooted a bit closer to Sync. He was still offline.

"But much better. Best I've felt in...well, in a thousand cycles." Tron hauled himself to his feet and smiled slightly. "Thank you."

Vector seemed about to speak but stopped, hand raised to her ear and expression increasingly surprised. "_What?_...You're certain?...Yes, do that immediately...Of course..." Her eyes flicked briefly to Tron. "Yes, but there's no time to discuss it right now. Make sure the area is secured.

"That was the main force," she said to them, looking a bit dazed. "There was minimal resistance and casualties. Complete success."

From far off down the shore there came a faint scream. And a fainter tapping sound Syntax had learned to dread. "Grid bugs..." he murmured. "Wait! Where are you going?"

Tron stopped and looked back at him. "I defend the Grid and its inhabitants. That is my purpose. Even Clu couldn't take that away from me completely." His face turned sad. "And I've got to start making up for the past thousand cycles _somehow_."

"You weren't yourself!" Syntax protested.

"That doesn't make it much better."

"Go." Tron gracefully caught the baton Vector tossed to him. She was smiling, really smiling, as she spoke. "But make sure you come back in one piece. The Grid needs its Defender."

He was gone in a fluid stream of light.

"Huh. I'm alive."

"_Sync!_" Syntax shouted.

"Oof! Ow, Syntax, get off!"

"Sorry, sorry." Syntax released his friend and sat back on his heels.

Sync smiled. "Don't worry about it." He stood unsteadily.

"Are you mobile?" Vector asked, still looking like she was having to work to suppress elation. "It will be a long walk back to the city."

Sync turned and glared. "_You broke it?_"

"I did _not_!" Syntax protested, outraged. "I left it in the city! We flew here!"

And if their laughter was loud and giddy and elated to just be _alive_, they really felt they deserved it.

After all the trials and toils and terrors, everything was going just fine.

.

A/N: What's that you were saying about my chapter lengths? ;)

Sorry about the wait, but _dang_, this was tough. I had to rewrite a large portion of it because Tron and Vector kept trying to steal the spotlight even thought they're _not_ the main characters (you didn't help by being mostly unconscious, Sync); I had to get Tron fixed up but didn't want them all to go "Okay, let's be best friends!" and automatically help each other—trust and lack thereof is _hard_ to write; I had to squeeze in all the stuff that wouldn't fit in other chapters; I didn't want to make it easy for them and in doing so also made it maddeningly frustrating for me.

...And it's the penultimate chapter and I don't want to leave my babies quite yet. :C

Next time: "Too Long." The title is misleading, as it will not be nearly as long as this.


	14. Too Long

_Discovery_

"Too Long"

By BlackMarketTrombones

.

They did the best they could.

The early cycles were rough. Whispers, panic, power-bids—the system endured them all, and sometimes they wondered if things would ever be all right again. But there were programs that stepped up to fill the power void left by the fall of Clu's regime.

In addition to resuming his old duties as Chief Defender and working to restore the Grid to order through the new administration, Tron headed up the searches for repurposed programs. There were few enough: some had been left behind to maintain the Grid, but Clu intended to take most with him to the world outside. Not many survived that incredible explosion and even fewer of those could outlast the grid bugs to be rescued from the Sea, but Tron searched with a relentlessness born of self-recrimination.

Vector turned out to be the only program still functioning with anywhere near the programming necessary to run the Grid. Her cycles commanding insurgents gave her the leadership experience necessary to design and implement initiatives—and her combat experience was invaluable in surviving the many assassination attempts. But she couldn't do everything.

"I can interpret data to define the optimum course of action," she said to them. "I can determine what programs need based on information presented to me. And that's important. But it's not everything we need. We need to know what programs want, what they fear, how best to make this transition without agitating everyone more than they already are. I can't do that. And even skilled data-gatherers can only pick up facts, not feelings."

As usual, Sync caught on first. "We're not programmed for that."

"We're all functioning outside our skill-sets right now," Vector said dryly. "You're MIDIs, and music is all about finding and helping us understand what we feel. Don't try to tell me you've never performed for a crowd and known exactly what they want to hear. I used to talk to Codec all the time; I do know a bit about you audio programs." She smiled, but it was sad. "And you clearly don't want power, so you can probably be trusted with it. I'll be blunt: _There is no one still running who is more qualified for this than you._"

They looked at each other. It was really no debate.

They did the best they could. Sync was the ears of the new administration, listening to find out public sentiment, and Syntax was its voice, figuring out how best to present new initiatives; and they both worked with Vector and Tron to make sure new proposals coincided with the public's interests and were implemented smoothly.

And sometimes, things just happened.

"That's User intervention," Tron said one millicycle when vast stretches of corrupted data suddenly started repairing themselves. "That's right, you wouldn't know," he mused at their confusion. "Flynn always came in to do his work here. But he's the only User I've ever even heard of that could. I was originally designed for a different system, and Users spoke to us through input/output towers. If there was some sort of design flaw in the system's basic structure, they usually told us to take care of it, but sometimes they would just fix it themselves."

"That's...incredible," Vector murmured, watching in awe as code twisted without any apparent impetus.

"Why didn't any Users do something like this before?" Sync asked. "Back when Clu was running things."

"No other Users ever knew about us," Tron shrugged. "Flynn wanted to wait until the Grid was perfect before presenting it to his world. That's one of the reasons Clu hated the Isos; Flynn's new plan would have him submit an imperfect world, and that went against his function."

"So how does a User know about us now?"

Tron visibly brightened. "Someone must have made it out."

"Someone— From when Clu fell?" Syntax asked, incredulous. "That was almost a full cycle ago!"

"Time passes differently on the outside. Flynn explained it to me once. One cycle there is fifty here. It should have been about...two centicycles out there."

There was a shocked silence. "So we won't be able to count on much help from the outside," Vector said grimly.

"Probably not anytime soon," Tron agreed.

Whatever User was working on the Grid found time a few times a cycle, but they worked on their own for the most part. And gradually, things got better.

Then, twenty-five cycles after Clu fell, Gigga—still acting as an aide—burst in on a planning session between the four of them.

"The portal's open!" she cried, aglow with excitement.

Tron's eyes widened, and he was gone before the others had even registered what she said.

"Are you sure?" Vector whispered, voice hoarse with shock.

"Pretty sure," Sync said, having crossed the room to peer out the window. Vector and Syntax joined him and saw that brilliant light gleaming above the Sea of Simulation.

For a moment, they were all silent. "What now?" Syntax wondered.

"We wait for Tron," Vector said firmly. "He's the only one who knows where to find someone coming in from the other side. I...never even thought to ask."

They didn't have to wait long.

Tron walked in looking as excited as any of them had ever seen him, and behind him tramped a figure the two of them recognized from that millicycle when everything changed.

He smiled, and the whole room seemed to light up. "My name is Sam Flynn," he said blithely. As if they didn't all know about the most important thing on the Grid. "I'm glad to finally meet you. I've gotta say, what you all have done here is amazing."

And they knew everything would turn out alright.

.

A/N: I listened to the song all while I was writing, but since it's so long (some might even say _too_ long!—hahaseewhatididthere?), it didn't even make it to the top 25 tracks on my iTunes.

Well, that's that. Thank so much to all of you reading this! I know I don't respond to reviews all the time (it's because I'm scared of you—I seem to be very good at accidentally offending people through the internet), but each one is treasured and re-read over and over and over again (like a loser—a loser with no friends). Don't tell the others, but you people are my favorites. (Especially YOU.) :D

I really love these characters and didn't get to work in nearly as much as I wanted, but I don't really think there's a sequel in this. I might write a collection of shorts at some point.

Until next time,

BlackMarketTrombones


End file.
